I'd always read that FireWire 400 was still slightly better for large files... Something about bursting. It's always frustrated me that apple has ignored esata, but I'll forgive them if lightpeek fullfills it's promise.

Willis.....seeing as how you are from Texas...I think....when I saw this post....being a country boy..who can't spell...I thought that you were talking about a musical instrument that took five fingers and a slide to sound good...I play a Dobro...but I never heard tell of one of em ar Drobos. ;)

ROFL Shutterdancer... I've got a little bit of country in me, but I like to think that I escaped most of the east Texas vernacular. West Texans mispronounce and misuse words... but they don't often flat out make them up like they do in East Texas.

That said, you don't have to be from Texas to enjoy some good old Dobro music:

Well that's typical... the very same moment I purchase a Drobo, they go and release an update: The Drobo S. For about twice the price, the Drobo S adds a fifth bay which allows for dual drive redundancy. This means that your data will be protected even if 2 of the five drives fail.

The S model also adds an eSata drive, which would make it suitable for use as your primary photo drive. To put it in prospective, USB 2.0 will get you about 400 kb\sec. Firewire 800 will double that. E-Sata runs at about 3000. That's fast enough that you probably won't notice any difference between the Drobo and your internal hard-drive.

The one drawback (besides the price) is that it won't work with the Drobo-share. According to DataRobotics PR guy, the decision was made becasue "After Spending $700 on the Drobo S, you probably won't have any money left for a Drobo share anyway". Ha! Just kidding. The emphasis on this model is clearly speed. If, like me, you prefer Apple equipment, then you won't have any use for this thing until Steve Jobs says you do. Who knows when that will be :)

If you do have eSata, particularly in a lap-top, then the Drobo S makes a pretty compelling case to be your primary data drive. For use as a unified backup in a mixed computer environment, you are probably better off with the good old fashioned Drobo.

This product has made me realize that I need to run one more speed comparison. Currently, I use the drobo set up as an air-disk on my airport extreme's USB port. I need to see if there is any improvement in performance if I set it up as a shared drive on my iMac connected via firewire 800. I think Ethernet is still going to be the weakest link, but we'll see. Previously I would never have done this because I'd have to wake my computer to get to my files. I believe Snow Leopard fixed this, so it will be interesting to try it out.

My 500GB HDD just had a cardiac when I was copying over pictures last night - nothing was lost, just got an unusual msg I never thought I'd see: "YOUR HDD IS MAXED OUT!"

I think all the post-processing after the weekends since I've gone in business and making multiple pre/post PS copies has taken it's toll. . .so wouldyou recommend the DROBO S for a Win XP user who only has a USB connection (not firewire. . .)

I'm planning on moving ALL my pictures/client pictures on a DROBO or whatever, so I'll be post-processing/PS'ing directly off the drive. . .

My personal thinking is that you would get more mileage out of buying a new PC than you would out of spending $350 and change on a Drobo or some other NAS setup. Let's review your options:

1. Upgrade your PC hard drive - A 1tb drive will run your $80. You will also need a way to clone your current hard drive. There are free-ware alternatives, but the only program I know of that can clone & adjust your partition to take advantage of the additional space that works with Windows XP would be Norton Ghost which will run you another $70.

2. Drobo\ Windows Media Server - This will set you back a minimum of $400. Its a more secure option than upgrading your computer hard drive, but it will slow you down a little (although it may not be the bottlekneck on a 2001 PC).

3. A new PC - I did a quick spec over at Dell and priced a Studio XPS Desktop Core I7 (2.8Ghz) w/ 4 gigs of RAM. That's going to run you $850. That's pretty top-of-the-line as it relates to photo work (note: I skimped on the graphics card... it won't help you much for stills). A cheaper Core 2 Duo mini tower (I hate mini-towers) can get you a nicely speced machine for $500 - $550.

With either of these options, you'll probably still want a separate hard drive. Dell doesn't offer very compelling deals on these. I like my media on a seperate drive anyway as I don't care about backing up my Apps on a regular basis.

If you go the drobo route, you might try and find a first Gen Drobo, which sells without firewire, but is otherwise the same thing.

As an aside, I'd be interested in anybodies thoughts on a high end Core 2 Duo vs. a Core i7 for photo editing purposes. I've got an ageing windows machine of my own.